Editor,

First of all to begin this letter of concern, I would like to say that I am ashamed of my community and the people in it for not passing the schools Kids Count Bond Issue on April 8, 2008. I was so outraged at the laziness and ignorance of the people in the community. I have talked with many people who just simply said, “I forgot to vote”, or simply just thinking that this was not an “important” election so I didn’t vote. That’s very UN-American! Every Election is important, every single one of them. Everyone has a chance to go out and voice their opinion. Another issue that makes me upset is that people in this community think that their taxes would increase. As it was said many and many of times, and I quote, “THIS IS NOT GOING TO RAISE YOUR TAXES, ONLY INCREASE THE AMOUNT OF YEARS YOU ARE PAYING THEM.” How hard is that to understand? In fact, I know of individuals (who voted against this bond extension) that more than likely will not be around for the first bond to expire. This extension will not even affect them. I am a 20-year-old college student who will be paying off student loans, and I will be paying the taxes until I am 44. I would rather pay the taxes 24 years than see the future generations of our community suffer for our greediness. I graduated high school in 2006, and I played Football and participated in Track. Traveling to other schools around the area participating in these activities made me wake up and realize how poor our school districts facilities really are. People of St. James, you need to wake up to what you all are putting the future of our community through. It has been two years since I have been in the High School building as a student, but I know that you all feel that our school does not need a change. I say that is simply ignorance. Ask to take a tour of our high school building sometime, and see how poor it is. For example, the old part to the high school makes me feel sick. I mean it feels and sounds like the floor could give way at any time. In fact, when close to 150 students at a time are walking down the upstairs hallway, it sounds like a herd of cattle or horses on the run! People, what do you not understand?

Another reason why we need to get this Kids Count Bond Issue passes is because I am so sick and tired of hearing these reports that there are older men outside the elementary school taking pictures of the little kids walking through the outside hallway and on the playground. That thought alone just makes me sick. Hello, wake up! The Kids Count Bond Issue was going to fix that, it was going to close in all of the hallways on the outside of the elementary school to keep that from happening. There is not another school that I have seen anywhere that makes Elementary School aged kids walk outside to go from class to class besides Cuba schools. However, THEY PASSED THEIR BOND to enclose their school.  Another thing that needs to be addressed is the safety of the kids.  It is a mad rush hour after class gets out at 3:00 PM. Now with the new Kids Count Bond Issue, you would have the “crazy high school drivers” (as some of you older folks in town would say) on the complete other side of town, away from the elementary school and all of the young kids. I just don’t get some of your thought processes, I really don’t.  After saying all of this, how can any of you in this community say there is not a need for our schools? I have yet to find a part of the school bond issue that our school district does not need. I am going to college to be a teacher, hopefully returning back to my hometown to teach. That is the dream I have for myself. I have always thought that by the time I get my teaching certificate, I will have a nice school to teach in. But, believe me when I say, it’s not nice now!  It is crowded and unsafe. Safe hallways for the students are what we have to have in the St. James R-1 School District right now. The schools are just not safe enough. To the citizens of St. James, think about what our future generations will go through if this bond does not get passed in the near future. Many of you know my family and how most of my family lives in or around St. James. I want to raise my family here in St. James, and I want my kids to have a good school system to go through. Yes, we have some of the best teachers in the state of Missouri here at St. James. But, what is a good teacher without good school facilities. Here’s my last point. I know for a fact that some of you who voted against the bond extension are the same people who for years have wanted more businesses to move into our community. You have wanted them to move in not only to grow our town, but to help share in the tax burden; to help lighten the tax load of residents.  Well, what appears to be ironic is that those same companies and businesses happen to check out the schools in those communities before deciding to move there. If we continue to treat our schools as a burden and liability instead of an investment, they will never move in to our town and this town will die.  We will have no school to worry about. Maybe that’s ok for some of you, but it’s not ok for me!

Dusty Craft
Concerned Alumni Class of 2006